Just saw this poem on a political weblog called Oxblog and found myself remembering moments with exactly that tone and quality,
by Scottish poet Norman MacCaig (q.v.):
Incident
I look across the table and think
(fiery with love)
Ask me, go on, ask me
to do something impossible,
something freakishly useless,
something unimaginable and inimitable
like making a finger break into blossom
or walking for half an hour in twenty minutes
or remembering tomorrow.
I will you to ask it.
But all you say is
Will you give me a cigarette, please?
And I smile and,
Returning to the marvellous world
of possibility,
I give you one
With a hand that trembles
With a human trembling
(From The White Bird, 1973)
Hey Scott, i have been reading your posts for a long time but never figured to leave a comment til now. I was reading one of your earlier posts, “Mirror Mirror and the Shillaly of Life” and it had 3 questions near the end. Instantly i came up with a answer to those questions, or what i think to be answers and decided to share them with you. Q1: Who are you? A: I am who i make myself to be Q2: What do you want? A: I want nothing, i go with what i have Q3: Why are you here? A: I am here becuase i choose to be. Tell me what you think, i would appreciate your feedback. Thanks
They aren’t bad responses to the questions but they just don’t feel right to me, Maybe it’s because I’m making this all more comlicated than it needs to be. That’s what I usually do and it screws me up most of the time.
The problem I have with those kinds of answers which seem to abound in all the mystical traditions (yours neglect the notion of “oneness” and “the All” and God-ness but they’re about what all the traditions I’ve encountered say) is that after you have those answers to the questions fully realized and understood then you’re still left with a kind of intentionality, of choosing, that they don’t seem to address.
I don’t know…obviously if I knew anything my life would flow a lot more easily.
Speaking of flow, the Sufi stuff I’ve been reading lately talks about life as a kind of music with a rythym and harmony. This makes sense to me since, for the most part, I’ve always felt a bit out of the flow, the beat, the harmony, and have used that analogy in the past.
Maybe just seeing my own thoughts echoed in a book makes them seem more right. Just don’t know.
However, if your answers work for you then you’re in a much better place than I am to be thinking about these things.